B.C. Cracks High Temperature Records With Pineapple Express

The Pineapple Express that arrived on the West Coast on Friday helped break high temperature records across B.C. on Sunday.

CBC

Jeremy Woodhouse via Getty Images

The Pineapple Express that arrived on the West Coast on Friday helped break high temperature records across B.C. on Sunday.

Some of the records broken (and the previous highs) were:

- White Rock 15.3 C (12.6 C in 2005)

- Abbotsford 15 C (13.5 C in 2005)

- Vancouver 14.1 C (11.8 C in 1992)

- Port Alberni 12.5 C (9.8 C in 2005)

- Dease Lake 3.5 C (0.7 C 2007)

The weather system also brought heavy rain and flooding to many areas in B.C. on Friday and Saturday, dumping up to 98 millimetres on North Vancouver in about 36 hours, but did not actually break any local records for rainfall.

The warm wet weather also dumped a considerable amount of rain on B.C. ski hills, closing some of the those on Vancouver's North Shore Mountains on Friday and Saturday.

Environment Canada forecaster Greg Pearce said that so-called Pineapple Express fronts are not unusual for B.C., with about two or three reaching the province every winter.

The Pineapple Express is the unofficial name given to an atmospheric river of warm moisture-laden air moving rapidly from the open ocean around the Hawaiian Islands to the West Coast. They can hit anywhere from California to Alaska, often bringing unseasonably warm temperatures, torrential rainfalls, flooding and mudslides.